Karbala: Strategies for balancing the hardest map for Insurgents.

[Pronck]

So here is the picture;




You will see 4 Big Circles, with Numbers. That are the major Ambush Positions, the Big Red Dots are the main ambush positions. The Red Line is "the bowl" that's the area where you need to lock the U.S. Team up.
The Yellow Lines are the weak spots, it is necessary to place a few sappers or infantry to make sure no U.S. infidel can use that weak spot. The Little green dots are the places where you could place FOBs , to make sure that your ambush isn't unmanned frequently.

Let's say that you got a full team (32-Man), with a commander, this could be the squad setup;

(Squad 5&6 Aren't marked on the map)

Squad 1: 5-Men Squad, Role: Ambush & Supply (With 1 Techie, and supply Truck).
Squad 2: 6-Men Squad, Role: Defend the weak spots N and W of their positions and make sure nobody uses that crossroad.
Squad 3: 5-Men Squad, Role: Defend the Ambush, and protect the weak spots.
Squad 4: 5-Men Squad, Role: Ambush & AA, they need to take down the little birds and attack all enemy armoured vehicles that are leaving main base. (They need the AA-Kit and 1 Techie).
Squad 5: 5-Men Squad, Role: Defend the cache, and mine roads near it, in case the enemy made it out of "the bowl".
Squad 6: 5-Men Squad, Role: Support all squads (Transport, supply, defending weak spots and cache defense), recon and use the bomb-cars and Garies.

This tactic will be very useful to take out the U.S.

The other Map will follow soon!

[mosinmatt]

I have seen many an armor piece get destroyed sitting out in the open. yeah, some places on say..Falluja. make it impossible.
The strategy? SAVE your stuff!! Save the gary and fake gary, save the bomb car, and maybe big red. Now...see that tank there? BUM RUSH IT! The fake gary, will basically be the decoy and shield and should lead the way. The bomb car should loop around and hit it from the other side. With two to three pieces coming at him he may not have time to take you all out.
A normal clown car in there would be good too. overwhelm him and panic him with targets. If you are lucky the driver may panic and start moving, messing up the gunners aim.

[Truism]

Panic him with targets? Are you on drugs?

More like present him with a target rich environment and let him get 30 kills.

[boilerrat]

I have seen many an armor piece get destroyed sitting out in the open. yeah, some places on say..Falluja. make it impossible.
The strategy? SAVE your stuff!! Save the gary and fake gary, save the bomb car, and maybe big red. Now...see that tank there? BUM RUSH IT! The fake gary, will basically be the decoy and shield and should lead the way. The bomb car should loop around and hit it from the other side. With two to three pieces coming at him he may not have time to take you all out.
A normal clown car in there would be good too. overwhelm him and panic him with targets. If you are lucky the driver may panic and start moving, messing up the gunners aim.

Won't work with the firebases camping with TOWs.

[badmojo420]

Don't remove the tank. Insurgents don't NEED to kill the tank. And the tank never wins a match on his own.

If any changes are in order, I say remove the unarmed humvees. Force some usage of the Strykers as infantry transport.

[Bazul14]

The map seems imbalanced, but i find it one of the most fun to play maps, especially as insurgent. The tank provides an awesome posibility for OPFOR to have an organized RPG squad(4 or 6 players with RPGs) If they manage to close in the tank, and assemble the RPGs, then the tank is very likely gonna get tracked. On noobservers, something like this won't happen, and very likely th eBC will get the tank.

[mosinmatt]

I have seen INS win that map quite a few times. It is also my favorite map to play as INS too.
If you can keep the pubbers from getting all the RPGs and gary/big red you are well set to take out the tank.
Problem Blufor has is that everyone rushes for the Humvees. drives them to the city and either loses them right away, or abandons them.
Is it a tough map? YES! Is it fun to play as? HELL YES.

[EmBra]

I think there are some great ideas on what makes Karbala a US heaven.

My thoughts are these:

The small villages and areas in B3, B5 and B7 are extremely hard to defend as an insurgent. This is simply due to the fact that the US can sit far away and shoot into the area killing all insurgence there before moving in to blow the cache. The insurgence can't do much about this. the area is too small to move around in as either a LB or a striker/mbt can kill them from a distance.

The insurgence need lots of cover to operate from, either vegetation, large urban areas or a very rough terrain.
On this map there is only one fairly large area where the insurgence can operate effective and that is the city in the middle, HOWEVER... The location of the cashes are often in some of the houses near the edge of the city, allowing the US to simply stay in the desert with their assets covering an inf-squad moving in and killing the cache, or the heavy assets just kills the cache with HEAT ammunition.

If an insurgency map is made correctly with either lots of vegetation as cover (Korengal valley), very large urban areas (Falluja, Ramiel) or rough terrain (archer, korengal) I believe the BlueFor can have heavy assets (Apache, Cobra, MBT, IFV) and still let the insurgence stand a great chance of winning.

As it stands now, Karbala have very little chance for the insurgence.

[Arnoldio]

The map is really pale = no cover for insurgents = their disadvantage.

[Bazul14]

Did you play the map, or did you just get your opinion from someone else?
Karbala has plenty of cover for INS, you just have to play smart. Don't go by the warehouse, with an RPG , when the Abrams is right there, in the middle of the field. You will get blown up, and its not because of the lack of cover, its because of the lack of intelligence on the player's behalf.

[killonsight95]

Did you play the map, or did you just get your opinion from someone else?
Karbala has plenty of cover for INS, you just have to play smart. Don't go by the warehouse, with an RPG , when the Abrams is right there, in the middle of the field. You will get blown up, and its not because of the lack of cover, its because of the lack of intelligence on the player's behalf.

actualy there is very little cover at all for the INS forces outside the city in the wharehouse or smaller villages.

[dtacs]

Did you play the map, or did you just get your opinion from someone else?
Karbala has plenty of cover for INS, you just have to play smart. Don't go by the warehouse, with an RPG , when the Abrams is right there, in the middle of the field. You will get blown up, and its not because of the lack of cover, its because of the lack of intelligence on the player's behalf.

That isn't what he is talking about. The B3 village for example is completely devoid of decent cover simply because the tank can obliterate the buildings with a few HEAT rounds. It isn't uncommon to have a cache there destroyed by the tank on its own.



And with its ability to return to base easily and not have to worry about taking long to get back to the fight, it can use its rounds as much as it wants to.

[Arnoldio]

Did you play the map, or did you just get your opinion from someone else?

No, is that map even in the PR mod... what is PR mod?

I played a fair share of all maps so dont give me that bs please...

And we are talking about villages, wich dont have a lot of cover (except buildings) adn comapred to Fallujah, Karbala has very little cover.

[Tim270]

No, is that map even in the PR mod... what is PR mod?

I played a fair share of all maps so dont give me that bs please...

And we are talking about villages, wich dont have a lot of cover (except buildings) adn comapred to Fallujah, Karbala has very little cover.

Yeah I think that part of the map would really benefit from a mix of destructible and non destructible statics, maybe the destructible on the exterior of the village.

Also, I think the southern river really needs some more access points (Where you can walk up) There is hardly any crossing points for the insurgents other than the bridges.

[BrownBadger]

Good idea, forgot to mention that, however the downfall of an ArtyIED kit is that it would essentially block of armor movements into the city, which is currently the problem causing them to sit outside firing into the city.

I don't see IEDs or Mines a problem when entering cities, the problem is bombcars. Bombcars are too effective, though not as many as there used to be, but as long as there are bombcars armor will want to be able to see their entire surroundings.

[Shredhead99]

Ok, I'll tell you my favorite Ins tactic on this map, easily racking up more than ten, even twenty kills, helping the team and denying the Blufor a whole flank. You can do this nearly alone.
Open a squad named like "Sappers" or so, make sure to have at least one buddy, that will help alot.
At first you will need one ammo car! You have to grab one, before someone wastes it to get to the front or so. Drive to the hut in H6 kp5 upper right corner. Drop the crates behind it, and leave the car. First, close the road with three or four mines. Use one marker for that. In the meantime, your squadmate takes the ammo-car, resupplies it and mines all three bridges, E7 bridge last. You continue to lay a belt of mines through H6 kp 5 + 6 right to the map edge, using the second marker for that. Announce the mine-belt in chat! If you need more crates, let your buddy bring them. One of you can also mine the mansion main entrance additionally. As soon as your buddy is ready, let him drop all three crates at G6 kp9, southeast corner of the block. Use some more mines and all your 5 IEDs to block H6 kp7. Use your last mine marker for this. Now all you and your buddy have to do, is to stay alive or grab the kits immediately again after gotten killed. Make sure to replace blown up mines, stay low and watch the position of your IEDs. Your Buddy can additionally close the G6 kp8 entrance to the city with his IEDs.
This will work most times, your team can concentrate on the western flank and city. May not work if Blufor rush this flank in the beginning or if there is a revealed start cache in the eastern part of the city or in the southern settlement.



IEDs
mines

[Pronck]

Bombcars are too effective

Getting killed by a bomb-car is not the fault of the developers, the driver and gunner should be aware of bombcars at all times. And of course they are effective, but having a good escort eliminates the treat of bombcars.

[Jorgee!]

Hate main base technicals campers..... or even the AA......

They should do something to avoid camping US Main base

[illidur]

regardless of which team im on this is by far my favorite map atm.

there are however some things mentioned that i would like fixed....... like somebody mentioned the riverbank in the south not having a slight slop to climb up. also i like the idea of some basements in b3!!!

another thing i would like to see added to this map would be an oil extractor fire near US main. to help against AA locks.